Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: An anonymous reader shares a report: Qualcomm is cheating on the Snapdragon X Plus/Elite benchmarks given to OEMs and the press. SemiAccurate doesn't use these words lightly but there is no denying what multiple sources are telling us. [...] Then there were the actual 'briefings' for the X Pro SoC. To call them pathetic is giving them more than their due. The deck was 11 slides, three of which were empty/fluff, five 'benchmark' slides with woefully inadequate disclosure, and two infographic summary slides. The last was the slide below with the 'deep technical' stats [screenshots in the linked article], much of which we told you about last week. And more.
The rest of the 'disclosure' for Snapdragon X Pro was a list of features that all fall under the guise of exactly what you would expect. The rest was filled with deep 'details' like the GPU capabilities of 3.8TFLOPS. That's it. No specs, no capabilities, no nothing. It was truly pathetic. But wait there is more, or less really, with statements like it having AV1 encode and decode. Trivialities like frame rates and resolutions were seemingly not needed for such technical briefs. See what we mean by pathetic? Those 10 cores are arranged how again? That 42MB of cache is what level? Shall I go on about the bare minimum basics or do you get the point now? SemiAccurate was planning to ask Qualcomm about their cheating on benchmarks at the promised briefing but, well, they lied to us and cut us out of the pathetic bits they did brief on. We honestly would have liked to know why they were cheating but we kind of think they will do their usual response to bad news and pretend it never happened like last time. If they actually do explain things we will of course update this article as we always do.
Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the on-demand-fire department: Okian Warrior writes: For $10,000, you can now get a flamethrower mounted on a robotic dog. Just load the webpage and scroll down. I saw this on the news today. *Definitely* we need to have a conversation about where AI is going. The robot, called the Thermonator, is constructed by Ohio flame throwing manufacturer Throwflame and features one of the company's ARC flamethrowers mounted on its back. The 26-pound robotic quadruped "can shoot fire in a 30-foot stream and comes with a built-in fuel tank powered by gasoline," notes Gizmodo. "The company says the robot also has an hour-long battery, a laser sight, and lidar mapping, and it can be remotely controlled via the company's app."
The company says its product is designed for "wildfire control and prevention," "agriculture management," "ecological conservation," "entertainment and SFX," and "snow and ice removal." It can be yours for the low price of $9,420 with free shipping.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Additional Character Slots
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
With the Dark Heart patch, we will increase the maximum number of characters that can be created on a WoW account from 60 to 65.
Have fun!
Season of Discovery Hotfixes - April 23, 2024
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
Season of Discovery
Players who have completed the quest “Warranty Claim” but have misplaced their Pristine G-7 C.O.R.E. Processor before handing in the quest “Salvaging the Salvagematic” may now speak with the Lost and Found vendor Rix Xizzix in Booty Bay to recover the misplaced quest item.
Fixed a Sunken Temple issue where the Atal’ai Defenders encounter would not reset properly.
Druid
The Natural Weapons talents now increases all damage done by druids in Season of Discovery, instead of just physical damage.
The Gale Winds rune now reduces the mana cost of Hurricane by 60%.
Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on the target when used.
Developers’ notes: Please note that it does still require Rejuvenation or Regrowth to be on the target to be used.
Hunter
Rapid Killing now reduces the cooldown of Rapid Fire by 80% (was a reduction of 2 minutes).
Chimera Shot weapon damage percent increased to 135% (was 120%).
Explosive Shot base damage before attack power increased by 50%.
Sniper Training has an additional new effect: while Sniper Training is at 5 stacks, Aimed Shot is instant.
< This article continues on their website >
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the moving-forward department: The Federal Trade Commission narrowly voted Tuesday to ban nearly all noncompetes, employment agreements that typically prevent workers from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own. From a report: The FTC received more than 26,000 public comments in the months leading up to the vote. Chair Lina Khan referenced on Tuesday some of the stories she had heard from workers. "We heard from employees who, because of noncompetes, were stuck in abusive workplaces," she said. "One person noted when an employer merged with an organization whose religious principles conflicted with their own, a noncompete kept the worker locked in place and unable to freely switch to a job that didn't conflict with their religious practices." These accounts, she said, "pointed to the basic reality of how robbing people of their economic liberty also robs them of all sorts of other freedoms."
The FTC estimates about 30 million people, or one in five American workers, from minimum wage earners to CEOs, are bound by noncompetes. It says the policy change could lead to increased wages totaling nearly $300 billion per year by encouraging people to swap jobs freely. The ban, which will take effect later this year, carves out an exception for existing noncompetes that companies have given their senior executives, on the grounds that these agreements are more likely to have been negotiated. The FTC says employers should not enforce other existing noncompete agreements.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the biological-data-analysis department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie. Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today. Described in a research paper published on Monday by a Berkeley, Calif., startup called Profluent, the technology is based on the same methods that drive ChatGPT, the online chatbot that launched the A.I. boom after its release in 2022. The company is expected to present the paper next month at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. "Its OpenCRISPR-1 protein is built on a similar structure as the fabled CRISPR-Cas9 DNA snipper, but with hundreds of mutations that help reduce its off-target effects by 95%," reports Fierce Biotech, citing the company's preprint manuscript published on BioRxiv. "Profluent said it can be employed as a 'drop-in replacement' in any experiment calling for a Cas9-like molecule."
While Profluent will keep its LLM generators private, the startup says it will open-source the products of this initiative. "Attempting to edit human DNA with an AI-designed biological system was a scientific moonshot," Profluent co-founder and CEO Ali Madani, Ph.D., said in a statement. "Our success points to a future where AI precisely designs what is needed to create a range of bespoke cures for disease. To spur innovation and democratization in gene editing, with the goal of pulling this future forward, we are open-sourcing the products of this initiative."
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the time-dilation department: Nicola Davis reports via The Guardian: If every day appears to go in a blur, try seeking out new and interesting experiences, researchers have suggested, after finding memorable images appear to dilate time. Researchers have previously found louder experiences seem to last longer, while focusing on the clock also makes time dilate, or drag. Now researchers have discovered the more memorable an image, the more likely a person is to think they have been looking at it for longer than they actually have. Such images were also easier for participants to recall the next day. Prof Martin Wiener, co-author of the study who is based at George Mason University in the U.S., said the findings could help develop improve artificial intelligence that interacts with humans, while they also offer opportunities to tweak our perceptions, given research has previously shown non-invasive brain stimulation can be used to lengthen a perceived interval.
The results from two groups, totaling about 100 people, revealed participants were more likely to think they had been looking at small, highly cluttered scenes -- such a crammed pantry -- for a shorter duration than was the case, whereas the reverse occurred when people viewed large scenes with little clutter, such as the interior of an aircraft hangar. The team also carried out experiments involving 69 participants that found images known from previous work to be more memorable were more likely to be judged as having been shown for longer than was the case. Crucially, the effect seemed to go both ways.
< This article continues on their website >
Sand Land, the video game adaptation of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama’s one-volume manga of the same name, arrives on April 26, 2024 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows. 
League of Legends pro Lu ‘Leyan’ Jue said he was just rocking out with his favorite oversized plushie. But Riot Games felt differently and fined the Invictus Gaming jungler nearly $7,000 and suspended him for two matches over footage of him humping a giant stuffed animal of Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear from Toy Story 3 during… 
If you’ve been on social media the past few days, you’re probably wondering why Foghorn Leghorn, the boisterous rooster from Looney Tunes, is giving pep talks to your favorite anime and video game characters. It turns out the joke has roots going as far back as 2021, but has gained new life in the past few days. 
Steam has an oft-exploited refund policy, whereby any player is able to request their money back for a game that they bought within the last 14 days, and played for less than two hours. (Selling a game that’s shorter than two hours? Sucks to be you.) But it seems that people buying games with so-called “Advanced… 
The creepy fingers that grow from a vibrating cornstarch-water mix can be modeled as a chain of inverted vertical pendulums (DOI:10.1039/c4sm00265b) and are believed to be the fingers of Maxwell's Demon trying to push through into our universe. 
